What do you know about the Shahe dialect?

In the Xingtai area, the Shahe City dialect has distinctive local characteristics. As soon as a Shahe person speaks, people will recognize that he is a Shahe person. There are some short stories circulating in the society that ridicule and joke about the Shahe dialect. One story said that when a Shahe cadre reported on his work and talked about issues one, two, three and four, he started saying "ye". When someone reminded him, he quickly changed his mouth and said "number one", only to say "di'ye" again. One said that there were internal documents from the central and provincial and municipal news departments stating that no radio and television units would recruit people from Shahe. The author has researched and verified that the former rumor is purely a joke after tea, but it is indeed true that the single vowel i is sometimes pronounced as the compound vowel ie in Shahe dialect. The latter rumor is really nonsense. Children in Shahe generally speak Mandarin after entering school, and their fluency in Mandarin is no different from other counties. The author is from Shahe and studied at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute in the 1960s. Among his classmates were several Shahe people. Shahe people work in radio and television units at all levels, and there are many people engaged in broadcasting work. Nowadays, the Shahe dialect with a heavier accent is limited to middle-aged and elderly people in remote villages.

There is another little story, which is absolutely true. A classmate of the author was admitted to the Chinese Department of Nankai University in the 1960s. When he first entered the school, he spoke with a Shahe accent. A professor who taught ancient Chinese was very interested and specially asked this classmate to recite Tang poetry and Song lyrics in the strong Shahe dialect in class. The professor said with emotion: "I have been teaching ancient Chinese phonology for many years, but it is not easy for students to understand. I did not expect that Shahe dialect retains so much ancient Chinese phonology. Shahe dialect is really a living fossil of ancient Chinese!"

Shahe dialect What are the characteristics that make it different from other counties and cities? And what is its function? It is called a living fossil of ancient Chinese by Professor Nankai? The author's research and conclusion shows that the Shahe dialect has the following characteristics in terms of phonology and intonation:

First, the generalization of the final e. In Shahe dialect, the final e is widely used. In many words, whether it is a single vowel or a compound vowel, e can be used to replace it. For example:

Replace a, the number "eight" is read as "be", and "衡袢城" is read as "de袢尊";

Replace o, "exploitation" is read as " be cut", "stroking" is pronounced as "stroking me";

Instead of u, the adverb "no" is pronounced as "be", and "happiness" is pronounced as "福fe";

Replace ao, "drink medicine" is read as "drink ye", "step" is read as "jiebu";

Replace ei, "Beijing" is read as "biejing", and "black" is read as "biejing" "he色";

Instead of ou, "妯娌" is pronounced as "zhue娌", "可头" is pronounced as "ketou", etc.

In another case, if the finals are i and u, in Shahe dialect, the original finals are added with e, and the finals are changed to ie, ue.

For example: i is changed to ie: the number "one" is pronounced as "ye", and "gratitude" is pronounced as "gratitude";

Another example: u is changed to ue: " "Green" is pronounced as "lue color", and "chrysanthemum" is pronounced as "jue flower";

The second is to retain a large number of entering tones. Ancient Chinese has four tones: Ping Shang Lu Ru (Ping Shang Lu Ru). In modern Chinese (Mandarin), the entering tone has disappeared, and the level tone is divided into two tones: Yinping and Yangping. The Shahe dialect retains a large number of characters that enter the tone: such as Yi, Qi, Ba, Chi, Hei, Fa, etc. The finals of these characters are all e in Shahe dialect, and are pronounced as ye, qie, be, che, he, and fe. The pronunciation of these words is short and powerful, and the articulation is rapid.

Many ancient poems are rhymed with tones, such as "Pipa Xing" by Bai Juyi and "Man Jiang Hong" by Yue Fei. When recited in modern Mandarin, the pronunciation is inconsistent and a bit stiff in some places. However, if you recite it in Shahe dialect and read the entering characters, it will be catchy and the sad and pathos emotion and impassioned momentum in the poem will be vividly displayed.

The third is to distinguish the sharp group sounds. In ancient Chinese, the sharp-tuan sounds are clearly distinguished. Tuan Yin, that is, the initial consonants j, q, and x of the tongue surface are combined with the finals starting with i and u; the sharp sound is the combination of the initial consonants z, c, and s of the tip of the tongue with i, u, or the finals starting with i, u. In modern Mandarin, the sharp pronunciation has been cancelled, and the sharp pronunciation has been implemented. However, the sharp tuan sounds are still clearly distinguished in the Shahe dialect.

Mandarin has replaced the Tuanyin character of the sharp-yin character, but it still retains its original appearance in the Shahe dialect. The j, q, and x of Tuanyin characters are still combined according to the ancient sounds z, c, and s.

J is still spelled z, for example: "focus" is pronounced "ziaodian", "drinking" is pronounced "drinking ziu";

q is still spelled c, for example: "couple" " is pronounced as "husband ci", "qianwan" is pronounced as "cianwan";

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The fourth is to retain the homophonic words and homophonic words. A compound word is a word that combines the sounds of two words into one sound. The initial consonant of the first word and the final vowel of the second word are combined into one word. Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bi Tan" of the Song Dynasty said: There are ancient proverbs in which two sounds are combined into one word, such as "ke" for "ke" and "盍" for "why not". Nowadays, a small number of homophonic words have been inherited in Chinese, such as the idioms with ulterior motives and "ruined in vain". Among them, "叵" is the consonant sound of "bu", and "Zhu" is the consonant sound of "zhiyu" or "zhihu". Shahe dialect retains many homophonic words and homophonic words. For example, "don't use" is "唭" (bing), and "don't" is "biao" (biao). These homophonic characters are also commonly used in other counties and cities, but Shahe also has all unique homophonic characters, the most commonly used ones are:

daughter-in-law (xi'fu), pronounced "xiu" (xiu);

Yi'shang (yi'shang) is pronounced "Yang" (yiang);

The fifth word is a mixture of the finals en and ei. In Shahe dialect, the distinction between the two similar finals en and ei is not clear, so en is often pronounced as ei. For example, "spring" is read as "blowing the sky", "opening the door" is read as "opening coal", "contradiction" is read as "spear team" and so on.

Sixth is the general use of the word "的". In Shahe dialect, the word "De" is widely used. There are roughly the following situations:

Every word "子" that is used as the end of a noun in Mandarin, the word "DE" is used in Shahe dialect. Such as: table, chair, child, nose, fat, etc. In Mandarin, the noun "子" cannot be used, but in Shahe dialect, the noun "子" can also be used. Such as cloth bags, nephews, etc. The most commonly used one is to call the wife "daughter-in-law", which is pronounced as "Xiu".

In the past, it was customary to name children in Shahe rural areas with the word "的", such as river, sea, cow, red, black, etc. Now that cultural literacy has generally improved, such names are no longer common, and most children are given more elegant names.

In addition to the pronunciation part mentioned above, the characteristics of Shahe dialect also have some unique features in terms of popular vocabulary and phrases. Due to space limitations, I will not go into details here. It should also be noted that since the Shahe dialect contains a large number of characters with tones, this article involves pinyin characters, and all the characters are not marked with tones.